Hello Triton Engineers,
I was recently accepted to UCSD for electrical engineering and find myself in a very difficult conundrum. My thoughts have been oscillating back and fourth as I’m having a hard time deciding between UCSD and UCLA EE. My friends and parents assert that it’s an easy decision—go for the slightly better engineering school in UCLA. Then again, my situation may differ from those of others’.
Throughout high school, I was a pretty diligent student. I wasn’t naturally smart, but extremely hard working and got A’s in all my meaningful classes like Calc AB, APCS, and AP Physics (also got a 770 on SAT math reasoning and 800 on Math ll). I did, however, get 2 B’s (and my only B’s) in Calculus BC. This makes me question my mathematical abilities and whether or not I can perform at the superior level I want to be at. My main goal as an undergrad is to score the highest GPA possible so I can possibly pursue my M.S. in EE at premiere engineering schools like Berkeley, MIT, or Stanford. I know GPA isn’t everything, but from drawing from my research, all these schools pretty much require at least a 3.6 to 3.7 undergrad GPA to even have a legitimate shot. And according to websites a 3.6 at UCSD looks better than a 3.5 at UCLA for GRADUATE school admissions purposes.
This begs the question: how much easier is EE at UCSD compared to EE at UCLA? Is there a noticeable difference in difficulty? A link by the UCSD website indicates that the average engineering undergraduate GPA is a 3.14 (hehe, how fitting). What is it at UCLA? I would really appreciate it if current or former engineering students could give insights, as well as thoughts on how easy or hard it was to maintain a high GPA here at SD☺. Considering the prestige level is not really a factor in graduate admissions, I would much rather get a higher GPA at UCSD than at UCLA, if it means maximizing my chances for top-notch grad schools. Then again, if UCSD is just as hard as UCLA, then going to the latter would be the better choice. But I would think UCLA is harder?(which makes it slightly less appealing).
Thx, and any help would be truly appreciated!
The difference in prestige between Samueli-UCLA and Jacobs is pretty negligible, especially for graduate schools and tech employers. I’ve heard that LA’s average GPA is closer to 3.0, and SD’s is around 3.1 (I couldn’t find my source corroborating this though so I might be wrong). If you decide to go to UCSD because it’ll be easy (or easier), though, you’ll be disappointed. If you feel math isn’t your strongest subject, maybe you should check out the math grade distributions and EE required classes to help you decide.
That said, if you get a chance to visit both campuses and talk to some EE students and professors, you should be able to decide which you like better. Making this decision solely based on your perception of prestige doesn’t make sense to me. Another thread on CC states that most tech sector and Google employees graduated from Berkeley and UCSD; you may want to consider future career prospects, proximity to corporations/internships/startups, and research budget as well.
UCSD’s EE department isn’t easy by any means… if you’re choosing UCSD to be the easy school you’re in for a rude awakening. You should really try to choose a school you want to go to, and consider what they offer you as an institution. Best of luck.
Thanks guys! I was never under the belief that UCSD EE was easy, just that it was EASIER than UCLA EE, mainly because the students at LA are statistically smarter in terms of numbers. But if both programs are almost equal in difficulty, then the balance of preference tips toward UCLA in that category. Then again, you guys are right, there are other factors that I plan on considering.
Thanks guys! I was never under the belief that UCSD EE was easy, just that it was EASIER than UCLA EE, mainly because the students at LA are statistically smarter in terms of numbers. But if both programs are almost equal in difficulty, then the balance of preference tips toward UCLA in that category. Then again, you guys are right, there are other factors that I plan on considering.
In UC, for STEM, it’s Cal > SD > LA. If you “must” quantify that, you can check the SAT math score for these three school. So, if you must say who is easier (in which case, I think it’s meaningless comparison), I would say SD is harder than LA. The selectivity is very different for SD. They select major first, then college, last university. that’s why you see their admit rate is higher for the university, but for admit rate students’ first choice major is low. Weird way of selecting students. They do have a low yield due to the fact they are always overshadowed by Cal for STEM.
EE is a difficult major at either school. I have a friend who’s son was a top student from his high school and after his first year in EE at UCLA was barely holding on with a 2.0! He had to repeat a class after both his freshman and sophomore year. I think he ended up with around a 3.0 when he graduated. He has been happily working in San Francisco for a start up since graduation.